Oh man, I've been geeking for this game for a while. Gonna have to grab it now it's out. I am totally with you @Vorn, I loved the Shadowrun RPG back in High School. Also, the Sega Genesis Shadowrun game is one of my favorite games still today. This looks like a great mashup of that and maybe the newest iteration of Xcom. Glad to hear positive things from your guys.

I started playing Rift with a few gaming buddies. I don't even have to time for it, so I've only played a few hours over 2-3 nights, but it is enjoyable. It scratches the MMOPRG itch for free, and though I feel the rift mechanic will get old over time, it is still really fun to team up with a bunch of random people in my area when a huge tentacle big baddie rips open the sky and dumps mobs out.

Another upvote for Shadowrun Returns. Perfect atmosphere. I was hoping for a little more open world, but developed in under a year via Kickstarter it's damn solid. I think what surprised me most was how much I was enjoying the game's music. I'm also looking forward to the user-generated dlc. I haven't poked about with the couple that are out so far, but I hope it allows for character transfers.

Though I'm just at that point in the kind-of-start where you first encounter the runners. I don't do well with stealth, folks. I always seem to accidentally press the button that causes my character to get out the drum kit and break out in to a solo. And being in a game where the NPC I'm with can run around and sing and sit on the head of the infected and other people with no harm coming to her, but when -I- take one step out of crouch mode all hell breaks loose...it's a bit frustrating.

Still, incredibly well-paced, gripping story and the visuals and (ESPECIALLY) the sound is fucking incredible.

I need to get back to Last of Us. I played it once, planning on working through it with my girlfriend watching because she was enjoying it immensely, and then we never got time to do that again.

Currently playing Dragon's Crown. It's a really fun side-scrolling beat 'em up in the tradition of Castle Crashers, except with random loot drops and more secrets in the levels. There's been some controversy about the art style but I'm fine with it. For me the draw is leveling up, buying new skills, and equipping new goodies with which to beat the living hell out of everything that moves. Super-fun! :D

I'm playing the Last of Us and I find it enjoyable. I find the levels fairly sparse though, in that any point in the game that is not filled with combat is mostly just sort of...boring? I guess? I suppose there's a tension that's meant to be there but the game is pretty easy(even on the Hard setting) so the tension evaporates when I can make it through any situation in one-two tries and I'm actually looking forward to being ambushed just so I'll actually get to do something.

Melee is also fairly overpowered, as well as very simple, and the amount of weapons available make most fights a breeze. I would've liked to have seen at least a two button combo system to keep me more engaged in the combat other than mashing square.

Uncharted at least had the adventure setting where you had to leap and climb through exciting and breath taking levels with a nice change of scenery(Deserts, cities, snow levels, caves etc), where I feel like the Last of Us is just treading over well rendered, but also well worn path of the zombie post-apocalypse setting which features: ruined small town, ruined city, ruined buildings.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, it's just on too big of a budget along with too high of a profile to really do anything especially exciting or interesting. It's for everyone, which means it can never really be for someone.

Sorry, but Dragon's Crown is awesome. Don't let the out-of-context bimbo art put you off, InvincibleM has it down. The art style is every 80s fantasy novel cover ever, animated.

D.J.- that's a fair comparison, but there's a ton of other male character art that does the man-meat thing.

Out of context the female art looks sexist as all hell. In-game it's just part of the overall fantasy art aesthetic. It's weird but it works. I just wish the anatomy leaned a bit more Frazetta/Vellejo and less Liefeld.

It is meant to be a pretty decent game, Vanillaware stuff nearly always is after all.

I just think the market is going through a fair bit of soul searching right now, and as a result it was always going to be singled out. There are other things that could take the hit, DOA5 for example seems to have managed to have it's new update with 'shake the controller to make the boobs jiggle' fly under most peoples radar.

In this case, I think it's more down to how the developer reacted when Kotaku said that the art style was a bit 'dreamt up by a 13 year old boy'. It wasn't exactly measured. Yes, calling out the art as perhaps being a bit OTT means he must be gay. They did apologise for that, said it was meant as a joke that didn't translate very well...

A lot of Japanese developers do fall back on 'big boobs are part of Japanese culture, you just don't get it' as a defence, which is fine I guess, just expect others to be less enamoured of it.

So the cartoonist didn't play the game? The dwarf is a grappler/wrestler sort. The elf is a small and fast archer. They have their separate play styles. I'm not trying to ride to this game's defense on a white steed of righteousness or anything, but that comic just says more about the writer not paying attention than it does Dragon's Crown.

I'll definitely say that Kamitani screwed up badly on the Kotaku response. The worst part was that he apologized to the Kotaku writer but never addressed the stupid homophobia that was why people were unhappy with him to begin with.